Here he used to play with Maye and her brother, Rob. Slipping from the saddle, he led the stallion around behind the rocks, secured him, then crept back to watch. Faint light filtered in through the canopy of leaves. In the dimness, nothing moved. He could hear nothing, but as he pulled off his helmet and cocked his head, a twig broke behind him.
Gowain turned in one swift movement, crouching low as he brought his sword up.
“Gowain!” gasped a female voice. She stood a foot away, a peasant woman in coarse homespun. “Tis me.” She drew back the cowl of her cloak. “Maye,” she added when he didn’t speak.
Maye? Nay, the Maye of his youth had been slender and beautiful, a siren whose call he’d longed to answer. “Maye.” His voice was as unsettled as his pulse. “What do you here?”
“Waiting for you…same as always.” As she closed the distance between them, her features grew more distinct. Yet they were blurred in their own way, by six years’ worth of lines and extra pounds. Still, it was Maye. “We heard you’d died.”
“I’m too tough to kill.” He looked around. “You cannot stay here. Ranulf comes….”
“He’ll not venture far into the woods. Ranulf fears the dark. With good reason. ‘Tis the outlaws’ domain.” Her eyes moved over his face, no doubt finding the years had marked him, too. “You’ve scarcely changed. I saw you ride into the village and wanted to run out and warn you, but Rob feared I’d be reported.”
“To whom?”
“Ranulf.” She spat the name, then smiled. “When Rob’s back was turned, I came looking for you, and found your men instead.”
“Darcy and the others? Where are they?”
“Safely away where Ranulf’ll not find them, no thanks to that great, stupid bull of a man.” She puffed up. “That…that Darcy feared I’d betray you.”
“It’s happened before,” Gowain muttered.
“I’d never hurt you, Gowain.” She laid a work roughened hand on his arm. “Many’s the time I wished I’d gone off to France with you instead of staying to wed John the Miller.”
Gowain swallowed against the sudden tightness in this throat and looked away from her adoring gaze. In his youth, he’d lusted after Maye, but he’d never loved her. “Tis in the past,” he said gruffly. “Do you know what became of my mother?”
“Nay. She…she just disappeared. Rumor had it she was a witch who’d entrapped Lord Warren, and once he was dead, she turned herself into a raven and flew back to Wales.” She snorted. “I say ‘twas a bit of nonsense put about by Ranulf.”
“Aye. Likely she’s gone to Malpas Keep.” At least that’s where he hoped he’d find her. Gowain dragged a hand through his wet hair, more tired and dispirited even than he’d been in prison. “I’ve got to find a place where my men and I can rest till I decide where we’ll go.”
Maye smiled. “I know what you should do. You should join the others who’ve run afoul of Ranulf.”
“What others?”
“The dispossessed ones. Families he threw off the land after he became lord, soldiers who refused when he ordered them to kill, poachers who took his game rather than see their children starve last winter. There’s six score of them, at least, hiding in the caves. They’d fare better, did they have a strong leader to guide them.” She glanced at him as she used to, as though he were the moon and the sun.
“I’m no rebel,” he muttered. “And I’ll not fight my brother, no matter that he just tried to kill me.”
“You may not have much choice. Ranulf’s hatred of you has grown over the years. He’ll not rest till you are dead.”
“I cannot go to Newstead Abbey?” Stunned, Alys Sommerville sank down on the bench in her mother’s workroom. She barely noticed the sharp smell of hot metal in the air, a by-product of her mother’s penchant for goldsmithing. From the time she was old enough to mind, she’d played in a corner while her mother fashioned beautiful artifacts from lumps of ore.
Lady Arianna, Countess of Winchester, sighed, her grimy fingers tightening on the gold candlestick she’d been fashioning when Alys intruded. “Not till your father’s well enough to go with you.”
“But his broken leg is barely healed. It could take weeks before he’s up to so long a journey,” Alys fought to keep her voice steady. A Sommerville did not rail and whine, even for good reason. “Surely William could escort me.”
“He’s gone to Scotland on your father’s business. And Richard,” she added before Alys could drag in her other brother, “sailed for France yesterday.”
“He did? Why was I not told?”
“You were locked in your room finishing your book.”
“Aye, but that is no excuse for ignoring my family.”
Her mother chuckled. “I fear we are alike in that, my love. You lock yourself away with your herbs and potions, I with my metal and files.” She traced the graceful line of the dolphin that formed the base of the candlestick. For all that she was a countess, her lovely face was streaked with dirt, and the linen coif covering her head was askew, leaking strands of blond and silver hair. She’d inherited her talent at metalworking from her goldsmith grandfather. How lucky she was to have wed a man who not only understood her need to pursue her God-given skill, but bit off the head of anyone who decried his wife’s preference for goldsmithing over acting as chatelaine to their castle.
Would that I could be as fortunate, Alys thought. But then, any husband, understanding or otherwise, was denied her by the special gift that was both bane and blessing. “I know you are weary from nursing Papa though his broken leg, and I hate to add to your burdens, but I must go to Newstead. Surely we can find a way,” she added, for her parents had never denied her anything.
“I know you enjoy your visits to the abbey and have gleaned much useful information from the sisters for your books, but…” Her mouth set in a stubborn line Alys saw seldom. Doting as she was, Arianna was fiercely protective. “‘Tis too risky.”
“This is no casual visit,” Alys protested. “I have finally finished the books and would have the sisters copy them as a precaution.” From the velvet bag in her lap, she withdrew ten slender leather-bound ledgers. Lovingly she traced the gilt letters on the topmost one.
The Healing Way by Lady Alys Sommerville. Volume 1.
“Oh, Alys. What an accomplishment.” She wiped her hands on the skirt of her gown with typical disregard for the fine material and reached for Alys’s treasure. “Nay, I am still too dirty,” she remarked, glaring at her stained fingers. “Turn the pages for me, if you will.”
Alys knelt beside her and opened the book. Though the floors of the great hall on the first story were strewn with fresh rushes and those in the bedchambers just below were covered with costly rugs from the East, this garret boasted neither, for fear a spark might catch them on fire. The cold seeped through her heavy velvet gown, but she scarcely felt the chill for her excitement.
The books contained every scrap of knowledge she’d been able to amass on the subject of cures. Penned in her own neat hand, they reflected her need to bring order and logic to a subject fraught with uncertainty and, all too often, failure. “The first three contain drawings of herbs.” She turned the sheets of costly parchment, pointing with pride to the sketches she’d made of each plant, seed and blossom. “And in the second three are recipes for potions. The third group has lists of sage advice on healing, arranged by ailment.” As she spoke, Alys shuffled the books and opened each for